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Comment by afandian | Hacker News Reader

As a British citizen I have more in common culturally with my German, Swedish, Austrian, Spanish, Danish, French etc friends and colleagues than I feel with a large chunk of my own country.

The people who tell me that I should be patriotic and culturally identify with them as British are the people I'd want to run a million miles from.

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Of course. Who doesn't have more in common with actual people they've befriended and worked with, as opposed to a nebulous notion of nationality?

But that isn't a basis for political decisions. The fact that you like the people that you're friends with is no reason to be in or out of the EU.

I presume you have friends who aren't from the EU as well, yet surely you do not believe in closer integration with those countries?

I have a similarly diverse group of friends, but it makes very little difference to what I think politically. For one, I doubt they'll be kicked out, but also I can't make decisions about politics based on a few individuals I happen to know.

I was going to say that I made no claim about the role of culture and cultural identity in political decisions, but left it out. I was making a narrow point, and don't neccesarily disagree with yours.

Great comment - I wish I could vote this up more than once.

Oh, big thanks from The Netherlands!

He didn't actually mention the Dutch ;-)

Then I will. Hi friends in the Netherlands!

Sorry! I would have done if I'd had Dutch friends.

I wish I could upvote you 100 times.

Hear, hear.

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